Akong Rinpoche

Akong Rinpoche (25 December 1939-8 October 2013) was a tulku of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the founders of the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland. He was murdered in 2013 in Chengdu, China.

Biography
Akong Rinpoche was born on 25 December 1939 in Dharak Village, Riwoche, Kham, in eastern Tibet. He was certified as a teacher of Tibetan medicine, but in 1959 he fled to India at the age of 20 and in 1963 he was given money from a sponsor to attend Oxford University in England. Akong learned English and introduced Westerners to Tibetan culture and religion, and in 1967 he founded the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland; Akong became a major figure in Tibetan Buddhism. In 1992, he was allowed to visit Tibet as a part of China's open door policy and visited Lhasa on many occasions. On 8 October 2013, he was killed in Chengdu by a former student of his, Tudeng Gusha, in a dispute over money; his family asked for clemency due to their religious beliefs. On 1 February 2016, however, Gusha and another man were sentenced to death for Akong's murder.